Words Left Unspoken
by Makkitotosimew
Summary: Edward is leaving on a jet plane. The goodbyes have all been said. But Bella's keeping a secret and it's tearing her apart. Can she let him go with words left unspoken? AU/AH, BxE, smut-free one-shot.


**Disclaimer: I'm not Stephenie Meyer. I'm just an author who now understands New Moon Bella a little bit better. Yes, that's right, this is a true story. Well, partially true. Until the second set of hash marks, I really am Bella and I really do have an Edward. (The names have been changed to protect the foolish and the oblivious.) After those hash marks, it's how things _should've_ gone but not even close to how they did. Like I said, protecting the foolish. Key word "foolish".**

**Oh, and I can't write songs to save my life, so all the music I mentioned or referenced belongs to its respective owners and all that other YouTube fan vid copyright crap.**

**Many, _many_ thanks to my número uno porrista, Fer, for telling me to write this in the first place, and just as many thanks to my dear and true friends, Jess/Thirteen and Conty/Stylish Dr. Reid, for holding my hand while I dealt with it all. I would be lost without you ladies. I love you all more than you know. Guess that's a theme in my life, huh?  
And thanks to the amazing and thoroughly indescribable AngstGoddess003 for introducing me to the wonder that is MuteMath and for getting me into fanfiction in the first place. I'm sure you have no idea who I am, but thank you nonetheless. lol**

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"I don't want you to go." His t-shirt muffled my already mumbled statement, but he still heard it as clearly as if I'd whispered in his ear. Even if he hadn't, he always knew what I was thinking, even before I did, so it came as no surprise to me that he understood me through my sadness and his cotton.

"I know." I felt his arms tighten around me a little and I clung to him like the life preserver I'd come to think of him as. The tighter he held me, the harder it became to hold back the tears that had been threatening to spill for the last ten minutes. I sniffed, a feeble attempt to keep the waterworks at bay, and settled on his own preferred method of emotional avoidance – dry humor.

"Mine," I giggled with faux possessiveness, a crashing wave of depression betraying me and making my voice crack.

"Always," he replied. His grip on me loosened and I could feel some part of myself start to tear and fray like worn fabric. It felt like I was about to go to pieces right in front of him, literally. "Bye, Bella." He sounded sad. Sad and distant. I watched helplessly as he headed for his car. In my mind's eye, a shredded piece of my former self drifted to the ground. I turned and headed for my own car, feeling rips and tears along my body as the shell of slight happiness I'd worked so hard to construct and keep up fell apart around me. I counted the steps to keep my mind focused and distracted from what it really wanted.

One…

Two…

Three…

I lifted my foot for the fourth and it just wouldn't move. I shoved forward and mentally begged and pleaded with it to behave, but it wouldn't. It was like my foot was possessed and whatever willful spirit had control of it was not content to stay confined to that foot. It took over my ankle, my calf, my knee. It climbed up and up until it had control of my entire body. It threw me in back in his direction and wrapped my arms around him before I even had a chance to realize what it was doing.

His arms wound around me and the warmth from his body lured the tattered pieces of me back from their curbside graves. He chuckled against my hair and the sound reverberated through my ears and stitched all the frayed edges back together. And for a moment, just that one short moment, everything was perfect again. But all good things come to an end and he climbed into his car without a second glance. I sighed heavily and felt all the air rush from my lungs as I watched his car pull away and round a corner, never to be seen again. The night had never seemed so empty to me before. _I _had never seemed so empty before.

I walked alone to my car and uttered muted prayers to whatever powers might be listening that something cheery would be on the radio.

_There are objects of affection  
That can mesmerize the soul  
There is always one addiction  
That just cannot be controlled_

Of course. This miserable drive home brought to you by the letters M for "MuteMath" and G for "God damn it, why couldn't I have remembered to change the CD before getting out of the car?"

----------

The hour-long drive home went surprisingly smoothly, considering I was sobbing hard enough to blur my vision the entire time. I let myself in, abandoned my personal belongings somewhere on my tornadic path through, fed the impatient mass of meowing fur encircling my feet, and threw myself on the couch and sobbed into a cushion until sunlight started leaking through the windows. It was probably foolish to decide that was a good time to get ready for bed, but I was worn out from crying and thinking and just _being_. I changed in a daze, climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling for God only knows how long before sleep and a cacophony of delightfully distressing dreams claimed me.

I dreamt that I woke up to the doorbell ringing repeatedly. I threw open the door and he was there. He told me he couldn't leave, that there was nothing left back home for him anymore. He held me the tightest anyone ever had or ever would and I cried the happiest tears imaginable into his shoulder.

I dreamt I got up and discovered a simple but meaningful message left on my computer. "I love you," it said, "and I don't want to leave. Don't let me leave."

I dreamt I rushed to the airport, flying haphazardly through traffic and making the two hour drive in less than one. I hurried through the terminals, knowing without reason which was right and which would be a dead end, and found him, bags in hand, about to board the flight that would carry him over 3000 miles, across an ocean and away from me. I ran to him and crushed him to me like the climax of a cheesy romance movie. I pressed my lips to his for the first time ever and heard Yanou's Candlelight Mix of "Everytime We Touch" in my head.

I woke up.

Worse, I woke up and none of it had been real. I still had a thousand secrets and my best friend was still getting on a plane in less than 24 hours and leaving the country, the continent, my life. I glanced at the clock. 10:12am. I rolled over and cried myself back to sleep. No point in getting up when the point to living isn't here anymore.

I dragged myself from bed sometime around 3pm and the day passed in a blur. My father took me to dinner, my mother took me to a movie, life kept going even though I felt like it was ending. My friends talked about everything they could to keep my mind off what occupied it most. I learned why dogs are better for sad people than cats, why you should never let nude pictures of yourself out of your possession, and more intricacies of the D/s lifestyle than I ever imagined wanting to know. The abstract conversations worked, for a while at least, but when the day ended and everyone else went to sleep, I stayed up and cried.

T-minus 12 hours and counting.

----------

The dreams haunted me again that night. The doorbell, the message, the airport. Over and over again. As the last soft notes of the accompaniment to my airport fantasy played out in my subconscious, I awoke with renewed purpose. I couldn't make him appear at my door. And I couldn't make him leave me that message. Hell, I couldn't make him love me or even make him understand what ran through my head when he wasn't near me. But I _could_ tell him. I could go to the airport and I could find him and I could tell him how I felt. I could be honest with him.

I dressed in a hurry, ran to my car and drove like a bat out of hell toward the airport. I had no idea what time his flight left, no idea what number it was, and only a rough idea of what airline. But none of that mattered. I would know. Like a sixth sense or some strange instinct, I would know. There would be that same magnetic pull I'd felt in my dream, that same nameless force and absolute knowledge, driving me toward exactly where I needed to be. It had to be there. It was there any time I was near him and I'd be damned if it was going to let me down now.

Traffic was miraculously light for a Monday morning, especially considering I was headed directly into downtown Boston. Someone or something was looking out for me; traffic is never light in Boston. I took the crazy, elevated hairpin turns heading into Logan International Airport so fast I thought my car might flip. I followed the signs and the ever present magnetic pull to the area marked for departing international flights and abandoned my car at the curb. Let it get towed; I was on a mission.

I stood on the sidewalk just a moment, getting my bearings and steeling myself for what I was about to do. It would take all the courage and determination I had in me. Pouring my heart out and confessing my feelings would be the easy part. It was running like a lunatic through a major US airport post-9/11 that concerned me. The TSA would hate me by the end of the day and I'd probably learn what it felt like to be a caged rat, but so long as I made it to where I needed to be before any of that happened, it would be worth it. I took a deep breath, looked around for anyone who might foil my plan, scolded myself for looking so suspicious and ran as fast as I could through the automatic doors and into the bustling lobby. There were people _everywhere_. I imagined this was karma's idea of a joke – light traffic, crowded airport. Very funny, karma. I'm in stitches.

I'd never been a distance runner so I found myself elated when the slight pull I'd felt outside grew and intensified once I entered the building. I pushed through the crowds, calling "Excuse me!" and "Pardon me!" as I went and still glimpsing more than my fair share of a certain hand gesture, relying on the pull to bring me where I needed it to. It was like being in a _Darko_ movie – just following the fluid course of my future, allowing it to bring me where I should be, never once questioning it. It was like giving myself over to Fate and letting Her place me where She felt I should be. It was magic and lovely and utterly terrifying.

In what felt like both no time at all and several complete eternities, I found myself standing at a security checkpoint, staring down a TSA official.

"Ticket and ID, please," he said.

"I- I don't have a ticket," I admitted.

"Then you're gonna have a hard time getting where you want to be, aren't you?"

And for the first time that morning, I realized the glaring and fatal flaw in my plan. I didn't have a ticket. I had no right trying to get through the checkpoint. A surly man with an obnoxious Southie accent and his damn metal detector were standing between me and the rest of my world. And they were going to stop me after everything I'd already gone through.

I was screwed. I'd driven recklessly through half the state, likely gotten my car towed to God only knew where in that horrible city, and probably injured an unreasonable amount of innocent bystanders in my rush… and I was screwed.

My heart pounded in my chest and the pull felt stronger, almost tangible. My mind raced, desperate to find a solution to my problem, a way around the evil TSA man. The pull got stronger still.

The pull… got… stronger…

Like hell I was screwed.

I searched the surrounding area, squinted toward the waiting areas past the checkpoint, peered through the crowds in search of any sort of hope to cling to. The TSA man kept talking but I didn't hear a word. People behind me grumbled.

"I'm gonna miss my flight because of this psycho."

"Just lock the crazy woman up and let us through."

"If I miss my connection…"

"What the hell is the hold up?!"

"Bella?"

My name. Someone said my name. Someone whose voice sounded both incredulous and musical said my name.

I spun toward the sound and locked eyes with the most surprised man I had ever seen in my life. There he was, three windy rows of impatient travelers back – the reason I'd gone through all of this, the reason I'd go through anything at all.

I ducked under the partitions and wove my way through frustrated and bewildered groups of people until I was face to face with my very reason for being. My very astonished, confused reason for being.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked.

"I… I couldn't…" I couldn't get the words out. I looked into his deep green eyes and froze. I lost all my nerve. I dropped my head and glared at my feet with the most intense self-loathing I could manage.

"Bella?" He put his hands on my shoulders and shook me slightly. His touch sent a near electric spark through me. I felt recharged, reenergized… reborn, even. Everything was right, and I could make it even better.

I met his concerned gaze and watched his eyes soften as he realized nothing was wrong. "I love you," I said. "I just need you to know that before you leave."

The relief I'd watched sweep over his face gave way to more surprise and confusion. "I'm sorry, what?" he asked, shaking his head slightly, like he thought he'd hallucinated or something.

"I said I love you." I swallowed back the rising nerves as his hands fell from my shoulders. "I always have and I always will."

He shook his head again, disbelieving. "You said…"

"I know. I said I was over you. I said it was just a crush and it passed. I lied."

He grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the line of passengers we were holding up. His eyebrows knit together and his forehead crinkled ever so slightly in confusion. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why would you lie to me? We tell each other everything."

"You said you didn't feel the same. There was no point in getting my heart broken again."

"Then why tell me now?"

"I can't not. You deserve to know and I needed to tell you. Besides, we tell each other everything." I chuckled humorlessly before adding, "Eventually."

He stood silent for just a moment, staring at me like I was the most confusing puzzle he'd ever tried to piece together. Then he turned and began pacing in an odd and ineffective little circle, alternating staring at the floor and glancing toward the ceiling. I watched him dance for a minute or two until the nerves and my own determination got the best of me.

"Edward?" He stopped pacing at the sound of his name. Instead, he stood in place and watched me, his expression laced with confusion, intrigue and a hint of fear. I closed the distance between us with one exaggerated step and his eyes never left mine as I moved. My heart hammered in my chest and my lungs forgot how to work properly as I reached up and put my hand behind his neck. I leaned up on my toes as I pulled him toward me and touched my lips hesitantly to his. His breath fanned across my face and my mind screamed at me to run the other direction as he decided how to react. Just as I decided I'd crossed a serious boundary of our friendship and probably ruined things forever, I felt his lips on mine again. They were soft and just as hesitant as mine had been originally, but the hesitancy faded quickly as his arms wound themselves around me and held me close to him. I wove my fingers into his hair as the tip of his tongue gently caressed my bottom lip and the rest of the world disappeared.

----------

An hour later, I climbed into a cab and gave the driver the address of the lot the Boston PD had towed my car to.

"Can't say I seen someone so happy 'bout havin' her car towed before," the cabby joked.

"Right now," I replied, smiling widely, "they could impound and demolish my car and I wouldn't care."

The cabby laughed heartily and hit a switch on his meter. I heard him turn up the volume on the radio as I rolled my window down.

_There are objects of affection  
That can mesmerize the soul…_

I smiled and ran my thumb over the letter Edward had planned to mail from London as the smooth and infallibly beautiful sound of MuteMath poured from the speakers and into my ears.

"_I love you, Bella,"_ it read. _"I was too scared to tell you while I was there, but I think I can now that I'm gone. I love you. I have since the first day we met. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."_

Jet engines roared overhead as a plane took off above me. I leaned my head out the window and smiled realizing the odds were good that that plane was carrying my Edward… and that that same flight would probably be the one to carry me back to him in a few months' time.

The song played on on the radio and the lyrics spoke to me in ways no song had before.

_You are mine…_

_You are mine…_

_You are mine…_

No matter what stood between us, whether it be a surly TSA agent, an entire ocean, or nothing at all, Edward would always be the object of my affection. He would always mesmerize my soul. And he would always be mine.


End file.
